children and servants happy? In the six days, every minute is consumed; and on the seventh, the parents tell you that the poor child is so worn and wearied with toil, that often they are fain to let him sleepto waste in bed the precious hours when he should be in the house of his God and friend the happy hours when, with his parents and his brothers, he should be enjoying the calm cheerfulness of Sunday freedom and Sunday rest. Have the masters of these factories-they who, for their gain, have called into existence this thickening population of immortal souls-have they always provided a house where those souls can be taught to know their God, and a house where they have a place to worship him? or would they defend their neglect by alleging that they who are always in the factory for six days, and in their beds or asleep for half the seventh, can require neither a school nor a church? If there was nothing else to allege against factories, be it repeated, than this, that they keep every human being connected with them in a continued crowd, and a constant course of mechanic employment, and that having called millions into an existence which is to endure for ever, they are so far from enabling them to prepare for that eternal existence, that they forcibly prevent any time or thought being given to it; that they forcibly destroy, as far as in them lies, all that is holy, and spiritual, and enduring in human nature, enough would be proved to draw from every Christian heart a sentence of woe against them, and to awaken a trembling anticipation that such wickedness, unreproved and unredressed by the nation where it is perpetrated, must bring down a judgment on our heads. Alas! how probable does it seem to human foresight, that, by a righteous retribution, the instruments by whom that judgment will be inflicted, will be those on whom the wickedness has been committed; and that all that is holy and healthful in our national condition, will be blotted out at the bidding of the fearful men thus nourished up without the fear or the knowledge of any God but the god of their masters— Mammon.

But it is not by what they neglect or prevent, but by what they do, that these fearful abodes of misery are to be judged. What is the natural if not the certain consequence of throwing together a multitude of the young of both sexes, unrestrained by religious instruction, and left to their own guidance, as far as morality is concerned (as is the case in far too many of these places), but the utter and entire depravation and pollution of all? How can evil again have more free and ample scope than by such an arrangement as this, where materials to work on are thus brought home to its door,-where one vile person can infuse into hundreds, by reading or speaking, the worst principles, and the most dreadful thoughts and intentions? Is it true, too, as is alleged, that within the knowledge of very many masters, in factories where one machine is consigned to one man, who is attended by several young females, that man, perhaps a husband and a father, is too often the seducer of all these miserable children, thus given up to him to be destroyed? Shall these things be, and will not God be avenged of such a people as this? It is in vain to talk of national riches and prosperity, and of manufactures as the source of them. If they can exist without these evils, what is to be said of the nation which never raises its voice against these evils?

What is to be said of the demagogues who, year after year, in language which ought to have sent them to the gallows, have been complaining of the oppressions exercised on themselves, but have never said one word for these miserable children? If factories cannot exist without these evils, is there any one-even the veriest Utilitarian that breathes-who will dare to say that they ought not to be swept off the face of the earth, which they pollute and poison?

As to the immediate remedy for these foul doings, the cure for the evils under which these poor children groan, one knows not what to say. It is painful to dash the hopes of warm-hearted benevolence, but is it possible to believe that legislation as to hours can do any thing? Will not Mammon laugh to scorn the might and the majesty of even a reformed Parliament, and, the very day that the Bill shall receive the Royal assent, put some devilish device into practice, which shall make it of no effect whatever? There is something, too, let it be said in seriousness, not in insult, very strange and sad in the way in which this matter is prest upon the public notice, and which must take away all hope of doing much good. With one hand these poor men offer up their children to destruction, and with the other a petition to Parliament to keep their children from destruction. That it is want which leads them to the former step, is beyond a doubt; and God forbid that their sufferings should be undervalued. But how is it, if they feel so keenly on this matter, that they who have combined for every iniquity under the sun, who have combined to rule their masters, combined to rule the government if they can, have never combined to rescue their innocent children from destruction? Many a heart which has condemned them on other occasions, would have praised them then, and have allowed that, dangerous and detestable as combinations are, the combination of fathers to keep away every child from the factory who should not have time to use and improve the precious gifts of a gracious Creator-health, and strength, and joy,-and to learn what God has done, not only for his body, but his soul,-had something in it of a holy and redeeming kind, that "God and Nature say that it is just." Why is it that such a combination has never been tried, but that it could not; that there would always be but too large a portion ready, whatever others might do, to give their first-born for money,-the fruit of their body for the love of filthy lucre? And while this is so, surely it must be in vain to ask Parliament to interfere as to hours. Let Parliament have as righteous intentions as it will, and as much power as man can have, still it cannot conquer the spirit of evil. It could compel the masters to build schools and places of worship, and to shut every factory at the hour when these places were open; but to prevent their having the children at every hour besides, by some means or other, while the parents will give them, is beyond its power. The cure, from what quarter soever it is to come, cannot, it is to be feared, come, if manufactures are to last, from legislation. It will come, probably, only when masters and workmen alike are actuated by a Christian spirit, whenever that happy time shall arrive; or when the nation at large shall raise the voice of Christian indignation against such practices. Till then, they will continue, and till then, the nation will deserve, and may expect, a judgment.

VOL. III.-March, 1833.

2 T

MODESTY AND CHARITY.

(From the Congregational Magazine for Feb., p. 69.)

THE "Congregational Magazine" commences a series of articles on dissenting chapels by complaining of the little attention paid to their architecture, and calling for more. After which occurs the following sentence :

"While, however, we plead for a certain degree of architectural beauty in our ecclesiastical buildings, it is with joy-we had almost said with pridethat we acknowledge (!) that for all the really important purposes to which a place of worship is destined, namely, for those of public prayer, praise, and preaching, dissenting chapels have always been as superior to the churches of the establishment, as they have been inferior when architecturally considered." The retiring delicacy which is thus forced to acknowledge the superiority of every dissenting chapel to every church of the establishment, and which will only plead guilty to almost feeling pride at such an acknowledgment, can only be equalled in its claims to admiration by the charity of the feeling which dictates the statement, and the obvious truth of the statement itself. Are the dissenting magazines compelled to nourish the worst feelings of their readers by such paragraphs, or are they written in pure simplicity and good faith?

THE HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

(Number for February, p. 37.)

A PLACE of worship has been opened at Caldbeck, in Cumberland, by this society, because "there is no place of worship of any kind open for seven miles round this spot- -on the evenings of the Lord's days.

Here is another feature of this society. It is in vain that God's word may be preached in truth twice every Sunday. If it is not preached in the evening the place is still heathen, and still requires the Home Missionary Society to interfere.

RIGHT OF DIVORCE TO BE CLAIMED.

LET people take the trouble of reading the following extracts to see what men are hoping for-the right of divorce whenever parties are tired of each other! This, too, for the furtherance of morality! and the putting down the villainous devices of priests!! This is the happy plan of part of the Socinian party, as put forth in the Monthly Repository. Surely the Socinians will disown such a book.

"The German novel, like the French play, requires an indulgent allowance for diversities of national sentiment. A large proportion of English readers are indeed deeply convinced that our own habitual habit of thought (whether it concerns the observance of the Sunday or any other custom) is the only true, and lawful, and permissible habit. To them we have nothing to say. To another class we content ourselves with reminding them, that in all that respects the indissolubility of marriage, the principles of the Anglican church are nearer those of the church of Rome than those of any other reformed church; and that in the Protestant churches of Germany, as well the Lutheran as the Calvinistic, divorces are allowed, as our own great and wise Milton so strenuously contended they ought to be."-Monthly Repository, February, 1833, pp. 118, 119.

"For certain it is that our present system does not work well. In many cases parties are inexorably bound together for life by the law, and by those anomalous relics of popery, the ecclesiastical courts, who are neither one flesh nor one spirit, but, morally speaking, divorced, and without affection,-if they

live together, living viciously. In many other cases the institution fails of realizing any approach towards that sympathy, solace, stimulus to honourable action, and moral training of the rising race, which are its proper and professed objects. Moreover, the streets of all large cities swarm with unhappy women, miserable agents of the temptation of which at first they were the victims, alike suffering and corrupting, and visiting on the one sex an involuntary, but fearful, retaliation for their own ruin. Now, if the principle that marriage is a common contract, a simple agreement, were consistently followed out, one result would be, that law and fact would cease to be at variance, and parties to be condemned to wretched lives of unwilling falsehood. A civil contract, not dissoluble, when its dissolution is required by the interests of the contracting parties, and of the community, would be a strange anomaly. Some of the American States have got rid of that anomaly, and we can scarcely throw stones at them on account of their immorality or unhappiness. There never would have been any doubt on this matter, but for priests, alike ignorant and meddling, &c. &c. &c.

"Should juster notions of marriage lead to the deliverance of society from these and other evils, it would again become the ministry of happiness on which the Creator pronounced his primeval blessing. May the Dissenters, therefore, persevere; establish the principles which they affirm, as well as obtain the rights which they claim; and 'no longer hesitate to take such steps as may be necessary to secure the speedy passing of a decisive and effectual measure of redress for a grievance which, having long been oppressive and vexatious, has now become utterly intolerable.'"-Monthly Repository, Feb. 1833, pp. 141, 142.

ERRORS IN THE BIBLE.

MANY persons have doubtless lately read in the Morning Herald extracts from evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons respecting certain errors alleged to be found in various editions of the Bible, and have seen a pamphlet published by a Mr. Curtis, formerly a well known bookseller, and now a dissenting minister, on this subject. He, it appears, has been the active mover in the matter, and by this pamphlet has put himself, his character, and motives before the public in a way which requires some notice. Of course there are two parts to the question, the one relating to the facts themselves, the other to the character of the persons who allege these facts. The first part is unquestionably the most important, and it will be properly handled by those to whom it especially belongs to rescue the character and vindicate the proceedings of the Universities.

It need only be said here, that any person of common observation, who reads Mr. Curtis's pamphlets, will see at once that the overwhelming majority of the dreadful errors which he accuses the Universities of allowing to creep into the Bibles, are mere delusions, alterations in the heading of chapters or the citation of parallel passages, or in the italics; that when these are taken away, his thousands will disappear, and sink down to a very different number indeed. In fact, the writer has strong reasons for believing that candid examiners have found the number of errors, properly so called, extremely small, and (inasmuch as the Universities do not profess to be perfect or infallible, or to have printers exempt from all human errors) so small as to be highly creditable to all parties concerned.

It seems quite important to the right understanding of the question that the second point should be handled at once, i.e. that some view of Mr. Curtis and his proceedings should be set forth to the public.

He professes very loudly that he has acted all along out of pure love for "the blessed book," and that in accusing the Universities of having permitted

inaccuracies and sanctioned deviations from the standard, he has not a particle of any bad feeling against them, and that his one only care and wish is to secure correct Bibles for his countrymen.

Now no person can even look at the first aspect of Mr. Curtis's book, far less go through it, without finding him virtually contradicting these declarations at every instant in the clearest manner, and proving, with a naiveté quite charming and a cogency of argument quite irresistible, that he cherished views and hopes of a very different kind-that he had actually a clear view of getting 5001. from the University of Cambridge before him, but that that learned body having seen reason (good reason, no doubt) for terminating all intercourse with him, and having given him only one hundred instead of five, and his attempt on Oxford having been resisted altogether, and with very proper spirit, by Dr. Burton, he is now making an appeal to the passions of the public, and trying to convert what he cannot use as a source of gain to himself, into a source of injury and abuse to the Church of England and the Universities.

These are serious allegations. The proof follows.

(1.) First of all, the four first pages give three or four distinct proofs of this volume being an address to the passions. The title is, "The Existing Monopoly, an inadequate protection of the authorized version of Scripture."

(2 and 3.) At the back of the title is (in capitals) the following sentenceIntentional departures from King James's Bible, followed by an enumeration made for a quarter of the Bible, which, it is said, (and the cautious phrase deserves notice)" suggests the presumption that there are upwards of eleven thousand (Mr. Curtis's italics) in the entire version."

Now, Mr. Curtis afterwards says, that there are three editions of King James's Bible, in 1611, and he does not attempt to explain from which of them these intentional variations have been made; and what is much more, he does not say that these variations have been made in any one edition, so that for aught one knows, variations made in a given edition, and done away with in subsequent ones, are counted up in his enumeration. Or, printers being not infallible, in each of 110 editions, for example, there may be 100 errors (only), which together make 11000.

(4.) In page 4, Mr. Curtis says, "There is no kind of adequate benefit for which the British public should pay from forty to fifty thousand pounds per annum to the authorized printers of the Bible. This, at least, would appear to be paid over and above what the Bible may otherwise be procured for-a tax on the noblest and most needful knowledge, I would hope and do believe, quite unparalleled. A judicious friend calculates that the Bible Society alone pays twenty-four thousand pounds annually above what it could print its English Bibles for, if the monopoly were broken up. Precautions might be necessary in breaking it up, but need not cost the country a twentieth part of this tax."

Here it is thrown out that the privilege given to the Universities is a tax, and costs the nation forty or fifty thousand a year. Mr. Curtis, all this while, will not pretend to deny that he is ignorant that there is documentary proof at any time that Bibles could not be printed cheaper than they are at present, with the least hope of their being even decently correct.

This use of the words Monopoly, and Tax of fifty thousand pounds per annum, with the enumerations of blunders and(unexplained) statement of their amounting to eleven thousand, (so placed as to catch the eye) is proof enough of the animus of Mr. Curtis. He relies on the effect to be produced by this address to the prejudices and pockets of the multitude, and this alone would render him unfit to be trusted without the fullest documentary evidence. But when we come to examine Mr. Curtis's work further, his views stand out much clearer.

He appears to have gone with fair professions to every possible quarter.